weekly update 7-20-08

I am woefully behind in posting this week and am sorry… it’s been one of those kinds of weeks that you never hope to repeat!

Let’s get that all out of the way then I’ll do my SP12 question of the week and update you on my knitting.

We first found out that a son of one of our knit group girls was horribly burned in an accident. This being after fire claimed the home twice of one of our other girls… So we’re planning on how to help them and rehoming their rescue bunnies and other critters when we get the awful news that another of our knit group girls husband was burned in a grilling incident. Both are at special burn hospitals in the region.

Other than working I’ve been trying to help with that this week. However one of my cohorts and I have organized a raffle. (<- ravelry link) We’ve scored a couple Ravelry tote bags, some fabulous yarn and are working on other prizes. Please follow the link if you’re on Ravelry and email me if you’re not and you’re interested. I’ll send you all of the information. If nothing else, can you please keep these good people and their families in your thoughts and prayers? 

Now, onto the not so bad stuff… 

SP12 – Questions #6
What is your favorite type of project to take along on holiday/vacation?

Hmm, quick and mindless! Socks, dishrags and the like. I did take my clapotis once with me. That was nice. 

If you’d like to share a story…Tell us about a time that you packed too much knitting or were stranded without knitting.

OK, it’s not a funny story per-se but my knitting was! My uncle passed away last summer and we were driving to Savannah for his memorial service. My mom said “make sure you take your knitting, I’m sure there will be down time”. Well, duh! I take my knitting everywhere but she was stressed so of course I just said “yes ma’am, I was planning on it”. So I go up to her house and we’re packing the car and she asks me what all I packed (she so goes into “Mom” mode when she’s stressed). So I start listing the clothes in my one bag and she said ok, what’s in that one- pointing to my backpack. I said, my knitting. I had my clapotis, socks on the needles, back up sock yarn, yarn for my chevron scarf I never knitted, and many many balls of kitchen cotton. Oh, and we were only gone 3 days. And I only got in a hour or two total of knitting time I’d say! Overpack? Me? Nah…. 

As far as my TdF knitting, haven’t done it I hope I get more knitting time in next week… I kinda miss it!

Oh and my monkey socks? Frogged. Totally and completely…

So this isn’t a totally pictureless post here’s my friend Laura’s new bunny she adopted from our friend:

weekly update 7/13

I have one FO but I can’t share it just yet. I knitted a little something for my secret pal.

I’ve also knitted almost half a dishrag and that’s about it for the week. I did finish knitting my Flying Monkey sock and decided that I should try it on before I kitchnered the toe. I doesn’t fit. It’s in Time Out right now (bad monkey. Bad Monkey!)

I haven’t done anything on my sweater except buy the size 7 dpns…

So, that’s it. Hope y’alls knitting is going better than mine!

Weekly Update 7/6

Here’s my weekly rundown. 

On the Tour de France KAL front I’ve been knitting but getting no where. Case in point, here’s my sleeve:

yeah. It’s looked like that 4 different times now. I had a great conversation with Becky about what to do since I didn’t like the sleeve as it was written and can not remember what the final plan was. However, I do remember the rest of the conversation enough that I’m forging ahead with trial and error. I will wear this sweater this fall. I Will.

My SOS08 update:

Still plugging away on my Flying Monkeys. My goal is 3 or 4 pairs by the end of summer (that’s Sept 21) so I think I’m right on track. Especially considering that one pair will probably be done on Laura’s CSM (they won’t count towards my official SOS total but they will count towards my personal goal and my pile of socks to wear this winter!)

I’m working on some things for my secret pal. I wish I could share them but I can’t take the risk of them seeing it and catching on to me. I will take pictures and add them to my Ravelry projects page after the fact.

I suppose that’s about it. Weather’s been good. I haven’t ordered anything for myself except another set of size 1 needles (but really, can a girl have too many pairs of sock needles?) and they’re more of a replacement pair than an additional pair (and 3 pairs of US sz 1 is not a lot). And tomorrow I have to go buy some size 7 dpns for my sleeves but that’s about it.

Hope you had a safe and happy Independence Day (and Canada day for my northern friends!) and weekend!

What I’ve done to keep busy

I’ve been knitting on my TdF KAL sweater. I’ll have one last update picture later today so I can get some more knitting in on it before le Tour is officially over.

edited to add:

There’s a little over 14 inches of knitting there. In one more inch the sleeves are attached, the second intarsia section is started and I’m down to 10 inches of knitting. However, it’s hot here. I don’t have a/c and this sweater is going to have to wait until it gets a little cooler. 9:38pm

Mom and I participated in some yarn related retail therapy. Wait, that should be 50% off yarn related retail therapy:

That orangey-rust yarn isn’t as solid as it looks. It’s right tweedy with flecks of other colors. We went to a LYS that is going out of business and got everything half off. We also bought a book of baby/toddler items to share.

I really wish I had thought to take a picture of Mom’s haul. She got a lot of pretty “arty” yarn for Christmas scarves and a pretty pattern for a t-shirty sweater.

The store was pretty much out of large quantities of yarn. If you’re looking for small amounts of wool for a purse or something, scarves or baby items you could buy enough of what you’re looking for. The wool I bought? What will that become? Well… apparently I’m obsessed with a pattern I haven’t even made yet. It, too, is for Knitty’s Clapotis. It will, obviously, be a larger “sturdier” more of a keep you good and warm type shawl than will turn out with the Koigu I have for the same pattern.

Mom and I also did some general errand running including the semi-obligatory coffee shop stop.

Yesterday morning before all this out and about, I finished spinning the first half of some roving I got online:

I’m quite liking it but am holding out all official thoughts until the second half is spun and the plying begins.

I’ve also started the ever cool “heel turn” on Dad’s sock! woo hoo!!

I’m imagining that by this time next week I’ll have a lot of either finished or in progress items to show you. I’ll have an abundance of knitting time and engery.

Earlier this month I mentioned my uncle, Don, who was very sick. Well, he passed away Friday night. It really is a blessing, because he isn’t suffering anymore, but it doesn’t make it any less sad. This would be why Mom and I were having a little yarn therapy yesterday and why I’ve been keeping busy and why I’ll have extra knitting time this week. I just wish I could knit in the car without getting car sick. Mom says I may want to give it another try… gotta love having a Knitting Mom!

I’m not exactly sure when we’re leaving or coming home so please don’t worry too much if it’s awful quiet around these parts this week.

TdF KAL update

Here we are 4 days to the end of the Tour de France. 4 days to the end of the KAL. I have not finished my sweater but I didn’t really expect to. I know I’m a slow knitter and that is OK. I got about 8 inches done on my sweater, including that very pretty but kind of tiresome to knit corrigated ribbing. But the encouraging thing is looking at the schematic, I only have 15 inches left to knit on the body then the whole attaching the already knitted sleeves thing. It’s a raglan cardigan so there is some additional knitting there (and more … shudder… corrigated ribbing at the collar) but that’s OK. I definitely have less to go than I did at the beginning of the Tour and that’s why I joined.

Very Sadly, there have been several people in the Tour who have been blood doping. There are so many things I could say about that but let’s just leave it at, it’s just sad.

Edited to add: Here’s a link to explain blood doping. I sorta knew what it was and after a couple friends asked too I looked it up for all of us. Blood doping by Wikipedia

On a lighter note, I would like to use the above picture as proof that I have not been knitting doping. I’dve finished the stinkin’ sweater a week ago if I was!!

Also I sit here and fuss and whine about my sweater. My first sweater. The endless sweater (that Linda – a blogless knitting friend did promise me I would finish before Christmas) of miles of stockinette… As I sit here… I’ve got about 4 other sweaters that I SO want to knit. Even tonight as I looked through knitting magazines after knitting with some friends, I bought a magazine that has sweaters in it that I want to make.

C’est la vie, non?

My "TdF" Sweater

Well, still no pictures but I’d like to thank everyone for their kind words of encouragement. I’ve decided to knit a minimum of 3 rows a day. Maybe not enough to finish it with flying speed but it will be finished. Since I did knit on the Tour de France rest day, lets just call this my rest day(s). But last night wasn’t because I couldn’t knit, it was because I couldn’t see right. I had a routine eye exam and they dilated my eyes. Seeing as how I can’t knit without seeing the stitches, I didn’t knit.

Crash and Burn

As y’all know I’m knitting on my Rosedale cardigan for le Tour de France KAL. That’s my “at home” project but I need a little something to carry to work with me and other such places. So I’ve been working on a sock. A sock I’ve not been so happy with. Mostly my mood I think, it’s turning out just fine. So today, I thought I’d start my Dad’s sock so I could carry it around with me (I’ve found for me, short row toes are best done at home). So after I went to Ukrop’s (and bought a yummy croissant for breakfast), I watched le Tour and cast on for his sock. I did my little swatch, I figured out how many to cast on and I was off. As the leaders are zipping across the finish line, I realized I had messed up. Badly. I could’ve patched it but it would’ve looked BAD. I ripped the whole toe out. I’d rather knit a good toe (especially for Dad and his first pair of knitted socks) so it’s not that big of a deal, but I’m really glad I didn’t have to rip out anything on my sweater. The two of us have finally reached an agreement and we’re just sailing along I don’t want any more problems. The moral of this story? While short row toes are best done at home, they are not recommended knitting while watching le Tour de France.

Since I haven’t made a lot of progress since my last sweater picture, and I have no picture of a sock that doesn’t yet exist, I’m going to tell you that if you click on the link for the TdF KAL, you can get some wonderful looking French recipes and see what everyone else is up to. Because you know, what are knitters if not enablers?

Edited to Add: I forgot one of the main reasons I started this post today. Knitnana tagged me as a:

How cool is that?! So I’m supposed to tag 5 people now. She tagged most of our knitting group’s bloggers (which I think y’all all are Rockin’ Girl Bloggers too!) so I’m going to stay (mostly) local too:

Dianne
Dana
Marianne
Mary
Robin H

The best part about this “tag”. You don’t really have to do anything! You can tag people but there’s no list of questions to answer or pictures to post or anything. Just enjoy…

Stage 5 TdF KAL update

Finally, I feel I’m making progress. Which does make sense because we’re starting to get a few more hills here in le Tour.

See where that green stitch marker is? That’s the marker for my intarsia block on the front panel of le cardigan. Have I mentioned that I haven’t done intarsia before? No? Oh, well, I haven’t.

If I keep this up, that polka dotted jeresy just may be within my reach!

Tour de France KAL update and dishcloths

With thanks to Robin I figured out what I was doing wrong with my sweater. We’re back on track now.

That’s actual stockinette there…

Also, over at Yarn Miracle there’s a little contest of who has the most hand knit dishrags. I know I won’t win, but here are all of mine that live here. Well, except the one at the sink.

Last summer was the Summer of Dishcloths. I made oodles of them all for gifts. But now, I have 11 living with me. 10 are pictured here.

Finally, I bring you my friend, Big Fat Groundhog. There are two living in my woods but he’s my favorite. All that rusty brown fur…

However I think he’d like it only slightly more than Bartholamew if I got his tummy. I do know that this is Big Fat Groundhog because the other one I saw is much smaller and darker.

I’d like to thank everyone for nice comments about my package to my aunt and the encouraging comments on my sweater. I swear, knitters are just great people!

Tour de France KAL update

Well, I may be getting a flat tire already. Despite finally finishing the ribbing (I think that was a large part of me putting the sweater aside), I have hit a stumbling block. I don’t know if it is a pattern error or something I did wrong. Of course tomorrow is Sunday, so all the yarn stores are closed but my favorite “resource” for help, aka: Mom, is out of town. I’m hoping that my next update isn’t, “Ah non, je dois dechirer.”*

Maybe I’ll just knit on some baby items for a bit. Because you know, errors sometimes fix themselves while you’re knitting other things…

*Oh dear. I need to rip back.